HFA Audio Setup History 05 – Simplification

The below article still contains some Dutch language, but fear not: the article is in English from the second half down!

I was sure of it: the Rowlands had to go. They were set aside but I had not yet sold them. Meanwhile I had bought a McIntosh MA6900 integrated amp. How simple could an audio setup be? But this would be short-lived.

Above is the Martin Logan Stage hybrid electrostatic center speaker. This one cost me a fortune and for a centerspeaker it was quite good, but in no way sounding the same as the main Martin Logan SL3 speakers. I had hoped for a seamless soundstage between the 3 frontspeakers but this turned out not to be the case. It sounded restrained and small. A very good speaker but not really good enough. I valued the Meridian M60 more highly for its ability to sound off the wall and create a large, very credible soundfield. The Meridian also had more balls, sounding much fuller with true fullrange bass.

After having sold my second pair N804’s and getting the 804S on trial I found that they were more refined and smoother but also less lively and articulate than their predecessors. And so I got my third pair of N804’s.

This is without a doubt the best setup I ever had: Martin Logans, B&W N804’s, 2 Rel subs at a listening distance of only 30cm. Intense! JUST KIDDING! In any case it was the most compact setup ever…

Nooo… all nonsense, this was done in order to be able to paint the left wall and the Logans had been standing in the corner doing nothing for a long time now. I only had them here because it looked nice for the picture:-)

The pile above was the result of my second “break-down” that resulted in the clean, simple setup above. By that I mean that I had gone overboard again with my beloved hobby and couldn’t see the trees through the forest anymore.

I decide to throw almost everything out and start again with a much simpler system. Like before, this worked out only for a short period. Then I got the itch again. Luckily I didn’t sell everything in the picture; the Jeff Rowland amps have stayed. In the meantime the system has grown again. See my current setup if you want to see what I’m up to these days.

I thought I was done?

I finished the previous page with the words that most cd’s are now playable. But this also means that well recorded cd’s are limited in their quality. In my quest for simplicity I forgot that part…

The Rowland amps were about to be sold and then…

I had given up on tweaking. I wanted a simple system. And I got it. The maximum soundquality achievable wasn’t the same as before but I was content. All was fine. I hadn’t even tried the new N804’s in combination with the Rowland amps. until they were about to be sold. I connected them up before the buyer arrived and did a soundcheck. Immediately I heard things that the McIntosh didn’t do. Ouch. As the Rowlands warmed up, so did the sound and me as well. This was really good! Time went by and the buyer was more than an hour late. At some point I was so content with the sound that I decided not to sell the amps anymore. That was when the buyer emailed that he couldn’t make it. This must have been a sign from the Audio Gods.

Now what?

I still didn’t want the equipment to spoil the calmness that was now in my room. The Rowlands are three amps whereas the McIntosh is only one but I didn’t want to apply the Spider Racks anymore. So I put everything just on the ground. After all, this is how they won from the Mac, even though that one was in the rack! Even on the floor, the Rowlands manage to sound very good but pretty soon I came up with an idea for a table to support at least the preamp and sources. The sound now holds the middle ground between analytical and warm, inviting musicality. Excellent cd’s now sound excellent and mediocre cd’s can still be played without punishment. That’s excactly what I ever wanted… Let’s see how long I can remain saitisfied…:-)

The rowlands were back. Now I needed to set them up neatly. The rack was out of the question because it did not have enough room for the mono amps, and I wanted to set them up equally anyway, not stacked on top of each other. Also, I was keen on having the TV in the middle, not off to one side. First I simply had the equipment all on the floor, since they handsomely beat the McIntosh that way already. But it just didn’t look right.

I made a simple but very sturdy table consisting of various types of wood. This made for a cleaner look. Also, the B&W’s sounded absolutely marvellous in this position, even though you wouldn’t expect this. But after some time I still felt that it looked untidy. And having the daylight coming from behind the system was annoying and spoiled many otherwise good pictures. Especially from the side as you can see all the wires running in front of the window. At this time, my computer was located behind the right speaker and that was where I sat most of the time. This forced me to locate the system at the other wall once again. In that position it looked neat again but the B&W’s didn’t sound so hot anymore. Strangely though, the Logans had sounded phantastic there. So I figured that maybe it is to do with planer speakers and their interaction with my particular acoustics. That brought me to the idea of trying another type of planar speaker, a magntostat this time: Magnepan MG3.6R.

At first I was reluctant to set up the couch back in its old position, where it divided up the room in two parts but I absolutely did not want to mix TV and Audio. I also quite liked the current setup which gives you an overview of the entire room when sitting on the couch. So I decided to keep the couch in place, for television purposes, together with the B&W’s that were now superfluous. The Chesterfield chair was now used for audio listening. At the time I did little listening together with friends so that was fine. This way I had created in essence two systems. Of course this didn’t stay unchanged for long…